The Trainee

[pantalimon]

Emily was in a room. A room with four walls and no doors, with an oak table and a single window that overlooked a glimmering, abandoned metal city. Buildings were just ribcages—skeletons with no skin, that strived to stay upright under the tangle of weeds and vines that grew over them. Where am I? She asked herself. It was cold, in this place; with the smooth cement floor and black-stained ceiling. She winced at the thought of what had happened. Because as little as she wanted to remember it, she did, and nothing would give her more satisfaction than for it to have never have happened and to find herself back in her ship, heading off to another deserted planet. This one was called ‘Earth’. On the Intercom, a smooth female voice was constantly saying either ‘Approaching Earth’ or ‘Gravity is now in effect’ as the ship took a nosedive towards whatever orb they were harvesting from next.

From where she was laying, in the room, she could only see the bottom of the table. This prompted her to stand, upon which she found herself completely unclothed. In the room that was empty besides herself, she blushed; her clothing was on the table. She walked to it. This is mine, she thought, fingers running over the rough fabric. Isn’t it? She pulled the dress on over her head. It fit, and so she assumed that these were indeed her clothes and that she had either misplaced them or thrown them into a heap in anger. She slid her feet into the smooth slippers.

She rested her fingertips on the edge of the table for a few seconds, and then removed them—nervous of what might happen. Would it fold away beneath her touch, and reveal a secret opening in the floor? Or would it simply stay there, merely a table that one could choose to throw their garments on? She knew that she was being silly, it was just a table, and she was directing her hyperventilating mind onto something that was less scary than the fact that she had woken up in a room missing an exit without her clothing on. Yes, that was very frightening.

The majority of the room was drywall. She felt it as she walked, clockwise, around the room, holding her palm against it. It was not painted over, simply bare, white, and chalk-like; a necessary covering to keep her from escaping. She had a thought. Emily looked over at the table, and its thick, wooden legs with the big squares on the end. Then she directed her gaze to the window. Yes, yes, that will work.

It was a heavy table. She could barely lift it on her own. So she turned it, with a crash, on to its side, and began kicking one of the legs with her foot. It came off under a particularly hard, angry blow that she landed on it, the wood splintering completely and the leg doing a bit of a rolling dance in a circle on the floor. She picked it up, feeling its weight in her hands. She swung it at the window.

An alarm in her head went off, cuing a male voice she’d come to be very familiar with. Good job, Emily. Commander Sameaus sounded impressed. We wiped you.

With a grimace, she climbed through the window, not caring that her skin caught on jagged panes of glass and broke open. She bled dejectedly down the entire corridor, unhappy that another training exercise had gone so well. Couldn’t they give her something challenging? She’d never even been off planet. And when they wiped her, it never worked. She always remembered who she was and that she wasn’t really a Cadet yet. She was still a Trainee. It pissed her off.

Everyone in LL knew she was the best. Hell, everyone in HL knew she was the best. So why didn’t the damn officers move her up already? She was tired of bashing through the window, bashing through the walls, breaking open the doors, and getting out into a holographic world that she wasn’t allowed to go visit in real life. There was one thing that made her curious, though; something she’d never done before that could make her or break her. She always got out. What if she stayed in? What could the big, bad Lieutenants possibly do to her then? If she just sat there, twiddling her thumbs, for days and days, and never did anything to get out?

It only took three days for her to find herself waking up, cuffed to the underside of a bed. She stared up at the dust bunnies over her nose. Where’s Annie? She wanted to know. What’d they do to Annie? At the same time that she worried for her friend, she also felt confused. Who was Annie? She didn’t know anybody named Annie, except for a long-dead relative. So who was she? And who was Emily, for that matter? Wait, she was Emily. Her name wasn’t Sundai. She was Emily. And she was right, she didn’t know anybody named—damnit. Damnit, damn them all to hell. They’re trying to fool me again. Well, I’ll show them.

She glared at her cuffs, and wondered if this was all they expected her to get out of. Handcuffs? She could do those with her eyes closed. No, there was something else. But she didn’t really care. Maybe she was back in that cement room again, and was expected to bust out of the window for a second time. It wouldn’t surprise her. HC had pulled that sort of shit before. Re-running her on drills, and making it only slightly more difficult every time. She wanted progress. She wanted to be smashing her way through real glass, and barreling her way into real doors.

She pulled her legs to her chest, and with a tremendous amount of force, brought her left knee down hard on the flimsy metal that held one of the handcuffs to the bed. It broke. She did the same to the other. It, too, snapped with a crack, and allowed her to slip out from under the bed. The room was on a bright, white setting, the light shining off the walls with such intensity that she could barely see. She sat down on the bed, and waited to adjust to the light. Now, she realized that it was normal—it had just seemed bad because she’d been in the dark for so long. How long had she been in the dark? She wanted to know the answer to that, but at the same time, didn’t. She didn’t particularly care what High Command wanted to do with her any longer. They could fetch another Trainee for their experiments. Emily was done.

She counted the seconds in her head. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes, sixty minutes, seven hours…the waiting went on. She sat. When she got to 514,012 seconds, the locked door at the other end of the room busted open. A team of three Lieutenants scurried in, all looking stern and solemn. One even had a disappointed sneer on his face. She could hear him muttering to his companion “Told you she wouldn’t make it. A failure, this one ‘ere is. Complete waste of time,” as the third bustled forward and took her by the upper arm. She didn’t complain or protest, but allowed herself to be brought before the other two. The one that had as of yet not spoken looked her over, and said “Send her to High Level. She’s got the point.”
The first man looked baffled.

“You can’t be serious, Eugene!”

“Quite so, my friend. She understands far better than I did at her age,” he grinned at Emily, missing two teeth, his skin as wrinkled as her roughly worn dress. “You have fun at HL. It’ll be a challenge for you.”

She was completely astounded. Fun? Here? It’s all work here, boring, simple work. I’m a puppet. I don’t want to move on. I want… she understood what she wanted, then. Understood it in such a simple, shocking moment that all she could do was softly exclaim “Oh!”

The entire convoy paused; the man that had her arm stopped in front of the door so suddenly that she hit her shoulder on the doorknob. All eyes were on her. She considered, in her mind, what she wanted to do, as opposed to what she needed to do. In the end, she said nothing. The Lieutenant led her down the quiet hallway filled with her staring peers and video monitors showing the room she’d just been in; to an elevator. Emily had never used that elevator. She’d never been allowed to.

“Ma’am,” the nearest Trainee said. He saluted her.

“Sir,” she replied, copying his action. She could hear the high-pitched zoom as the pod came into docking, and the doors slid open with a whirr.
The young man nodded to her, and she nodded to him. The Lieutenant was gone. She knew that this boy’s face was the last she would see of LL wing. Emily stayed in that position for just a moment longer, and then turned to face the open and waiting doors of the elevator pod. She felt that she wanted to say goodbye. She said nothing.

Her foot planted itself firmly inside of the pod, and she eyed her shoe. It was worn, and smooth; the most recognizable token of a good Cadet. And that’s what she was, now, even though she had had every intention of leaving just days before. She was leaving Low Level. Emily was going make it to the top. She would be in the next ship that left, and she would hear the smooth female voice of the Intercom saying ‘Approaching Earth’ and ‘Gravity Now in Effect’. She was happy, in a dry sort of way. This was the Commander’s way of telling her Good Job, Emily. You’re better than everybody else here. Good Job.